For this article, I chose to take a slightly different approach than the standard &quot;Linux distribution review&quot;. As I have written not just one, but two reviews of Fedora Core 2 for this site, I want to base my review of Fedora Core 3 on my experiences with its direct predecessor. Update: FC3 shots here.

" I constantly had problems with the USB memory stick I bought in September. When I plugged it in, an icon appeared on the desktop and I was able to use it. But as soon as I unmounted it and unplugged it, I knew that I would have to reboot to plug it in again. When I just plugged it in again, nothing happened. No icon on the desktop appeared and it was not there under /mnt. I even tried to mount it via the terminal but then it always said: " Resource busy"."

I struck similar problems from time to time with MDK, but discovered a workaround that saves me from rebooting.

type as root: "fuser -m /dev/{device}" (e.g. /dev/cdrom)

This will show you the PID(s) still running on that device, so it's then just a simple "kill {PID number}" (e.g. kill 1435). You should then be able to mount it again.

Hope this helps

Anyway, back on topic...I downloaded and tried FC3_x64 but had dramas installing additional software, so I've gone back to MDK_x64 for now. When the repositories build up enough to make it worthwhile I'll give it another try.

I have to admit that the inclusion of new versions of software is always welcome but, what about of new software that is really missing. What about a cd recorder software for gnome just like K3B. What about Gnome-PPP. This one is missing even in any fedora software repository. Those are basic programs for day by day use by anybody. And there are much more that i can't remember now but that misses for someone else for sure.

The use of the Gnome panel configuration is great. My girl friend asked me some time ago: "Why do I have to click on the red hat to shut down the computer". Ouch. This is as bad as MS Windows handles it (in means of usability).

Web browser: Personally I don't want to use Firefox. I use Epiphany, it's better integrated and faster (the program itself, not the web content rendering). I don't know why there are no packages for the plugins. Don't get me wrong: Firefox is a good browser that I use at my work (Windows machine), but it does not "feel" in Gnome.

Another thing is that the new Evolution is a big step forward. Unfortunately the sync of my Palm IIIx destroyed a part of my adresses. This worked in previous versions I had to re-enter some of my adresses, the new dialogs are great. But they suffer from the same problem in FC3: Dialogs in english. Printed lists in english. I thought I did a german install So that's not a big problem for me, but for my mother, for example.

A plus for FC3 is that it recognized my Synaptics Touchpad. The bad thing is: This was in the first install. The second install I forgot to plug out my USB mouse. Now I don't know how to (automatically) let FC3 let recognize that I have a touchpad that has special functions. Even kudzu couldn't help me.

Then there are few problems left. For the general desktop user hard to solve: I've got a mail with a MS Word document. But the file type was ".DOC", so FC3 didn't recognize the document - I had to rename it.

OpenOffice: Great steps forward. But I had a real crash with data loss (using Insert -- Graphics in Impress).

Another problem I have: the guys from RedHat mentioned that the inclusion of NetworkManager will ease the use of wireless networks. But how to activate it? I tried to start the daemon (and all my network connections were gone), there is no panel applet. The packages (NetworkManager and NetworkManager-gnome) are installed.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for reading. Otherwise: I love Fedora

One thing left: Did you realize the existance of the great wallpaper graphics?

nice additions, thx.
maybe we should have written this together too? *g*

firefox-epiphany: well, i guess firefox should be as integrated as epiphany. but maybe that's entirely impossible, because firefox still wants to be a cross-plattform application. i don't know...

wireless: i don't know. m laptop doesn't have wireless and i still don't need it. but this firmware-crap is really a problem. i do hope, the hardware manufacturers release these files for a better inclusion into linux distribution.

I agree with the auther, It would be a good idea to replace Evolution as the default PIM in Gnome with Firebird, Thunderbird and Sunbird from Mozilla. Not that Evolution is a bad program, in fact I think it is very good, but it would be easier to migrate from Windows to Linux if they used cross platform programs. I think that it is this crossplatformness that have been a key factor in the success of OpenOffice. Why not do it for PIM programs as well.

Evolution is very similar to Outlook so most windows users would probably not have any problems, but bosses and admins gets worried as it isn't quite the same program. E.g. will palm synchronization work the same way. And when its time to upgrade the likeness might change,...

I have played with Ubuntu and Fedora Core 3 quite a bit for the last week or two. I had some annoying problems with Fedora:

1.) Pain installing the nVidia drivers, requiring a workaround (disabling the x-server during bootup and making symlinks for nvidia /dev entries in /etc/udev/devices).

2.) Pain finding repositories that were up to date for FC3, so I could install the missing packages that make a Linux desktop usable (some packages were much much harder to find for Fedora than they were for Ubuntu).

3.) Annoying bugs (java crashing firefox, no sound in mozilla mplayer plugin, etc.) I never did get java working in Firefox using FC3.

Ubuntu had none of these major headaches, largely due to the superior quality of the repositories for it.

In fact, using this wiki, Ubuntu was relatively painless when it came to setting up multimedia stuff:

Redhat really needs to have some kind of supplemental restricted or non-free repository that works better with Fedora. They also need to cut down on the annoying bugs. It is a shame, because there were many other things about Fedora that I really liked.

Still in some regards it can't give to me what Windows gives me, while in others it's way ahead (easy to have a secure installation, lots of packages etc). I guess, like everything in life, it's a tradeoff. But it gets more easy for me every month to use Linux more exclusively. Less painful. Using mostly Openoffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and Gaim, it doesn't really matter which platform I'm using (That's a good thing about most OSS-projects too - easy portability).

And Linux HAS two killer apps for me already. They're called Pingus and Slune, and are not available on Windows!

"A new addition in the multimedia arena is the Helix Player: I can't put this one to good use. In fact, it annoyed me greatly that just about the only time it wanted to do something was when I clicked (yeah, right!) an rpm-file in Firefox. <snip> Come on, I certainly do not want to "listen" to my 3rd party packages, *g*."

This is a server-side issue with the Apache configuration. Most Apache webservers are set up to associate the .rpm extension with a RealMedia stream of MIME type audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin. If this happened on an Internet site, you need to ask the server administrator to configure Apache such that .rpm is linked to MIME type application/x-rpm.

Any time the RealMedia plugin is installed in Mozilla or Firefox, it automatically links .rpm and audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin. However, if the web server says .rpm is application/x-rpm, you'll be able to download the file instead of the browser firing up the Real plugin.

I don't dabble with Linux now but when I did, I used to use a program called Eclipt Roaster or Eroaster. It's a gtk App and was really easy to use. It just worked too, I could never get K3B working but this worked every time for me. You can write data CDs, music CDs and ISOs. Really cool little App. Nice and simple.

you're right, it was firefox 0.10.1 from the installation cds. but one of the first updates that came through up2date was firefox 1.0, so i guess they wanted to include it, but there was not enough time to QA ist enough, so they sent it out as soon as it was tagged "ok"

i admit that i don't know much about selinux.
but: i said that the inclusion of selinux went quite well. and that is probably true, not because i had a problem with it, but there was no outcry from the community after fc3 was released. so, contrary to the betas of fc2 that had horrible selinux problems, fc3 seems to have a good selinux implementation.

I have to admit that the inclusion of new versions of software is always welcome but, what about of new software that is really missing. What about a cd recorder software for gnome just like K3B. What about Gnome-PPP. This one is missing even in any fedora software repository. Those are basic programs for day by day use by anybody. And there are much more that i can't remember now but that misses for someone else for sure.
>
>
You've got to be kidding. K3B and software like it is worthless crap. Give me Xcdroast and others that gives me am
control of what I want to do without the hassle of a cutesy
GUI getting in my way. There's nothing more anoying than the burning software that's out for Windows like Nero and the rest of that tripe.

Dude, the problem you had was exactly what SELinux is about. IN general, IŽd say that if you have no idea what something is, you are hardly qualified to say it works well, (or bad).
>
>
Like so many of the lamers who write "reviews" of software and hardware these days,the "author" of this "article" isn't qualified to turn a computer *ON* let alone actually *USE* one.

In the real world people like this would get arrested for driving a car after their drivers's license had been revoked for too many speeding tickets or something similar.

once again: i did not say that it works well or not, i just said that the introduction into fedora went well (after testing it for six more months). there's a difference that you probably do not understand.

but why do i even answer? your posting is pure flamebait. write something yourself, or criticise what you don't like in an appropriate manner. or just do us all a favor and keep your mouth shut.

You need to start the "NetworkManagerInfo" process, which will then add itself to your gnome session. It spawns and controls the lifetime of the NetworkManager panel applet. If you've got session-saving turned on (which I believe it is by default), then you shouldn't need to run NMI ever again.

NetworkManagerInfo dishes out stuff like what wireless networks you've connected to to NetworkManager, that's per-user configuration information. NetworkManager won't use a wireless network both NetworkManagerInfo is running and until you've explicitly clicked on it at least once in the applet.

i agree with the article: meta-packages for proprietary software is a good way forward. i have liked this ability in ports-type systems and also derived distros which make it easy to pull in 3rd party software like flash, nvidia, realplayer, dvdcss etc ... i even saw one distro which said "click here" to pull in microsoft fonts. excellent!
this is the way out of the proprietary licensing dilemna.

why FC3...when RedHat doesnt intend it for the Windows XP user....its more like for the eXPerienced linux user....
What do u mean "real desktop deployements"...well XP is neither for any desktop deployements
..how much time does it take for XP to get infected/spywared
after a fresh install ? 15 mins and yes its ready for the desktop
1.Firefox crash ....is a specific problem for u...i dont have it
in either windows/linux.....Try removing ur profile(back up ur bookmarks.html file...if u want to save ur bookmarks)
and restart the browser....
2.I dont use any mail client.....used thunderbird once..thats it
and Linux on desktop will gain slowly that is and
Darius remember no one cares what u or i think.....

Please tell to us what else you hate and what you like,
and what you think about how another persons look,
maybe say about politics, religion also and donot
forget about computer games .etc
we will listen you for sure.

p.s You care about Indian children , so help them . Go to
Mumbai and give your money it will be more usefull.

I see here that the primary use of fedora seems to be desktop orientated. But what now when some companies are developing server applications that have Fedora as OS specification.

How are updates handled, do one get feature changes or is it security only?

Ever since redhat the base install using the regular installer has been around 1GB, is this the case with fedora aswell, because when I install a server i don't won't all those x-app, printing utils.. etc. that wasn't deselectable in the install? You had to remove somewhere around 150 packages to get a usable solution.

When working against a enterprice software provider it's almost impossible to get further specs than kernel-this and libstdc++-that.

Is it really a working solution to run a server application on this desktop distribution?

In the reviews i've seen of FC3 so far everybody has neglected to mention that the HD is partitioned in Lodgical volumes by default. This was non trivial to setup before.
Works great too!!. I've added a second HD to my PC and simply grown the '/' partition.

Until Linux is able to play media content without breaking ALL of the copywrite protected laws it will remain in the back room.

Yeah Darius, thats why linux settopboxes are flourishing. Don't confuse the desktop players with playback across the board for Linux. Equator, Sigma, and other chipsets don't have this 'ripped DLL' problem.

It used to be that RH really only put moderately stable software in their dist, they did a pretty decent job of not including versions with horrible issues. Fedora though seems to be more typical of a "bleeding edge" distribution and it's including new versions with all their problems.
As for your sound, you should research it. I highly doubt it's truly unsupported... Either OSS or ALSA probably has some driver somewhere for it; I've got a couple of machines with AC'97 variants (AC97 actually isn't the sound, there is a multitude of sound codecs used and called AC97).

> Of course I'm thinking debian stable here but some newer apps would be nice

This is not exactly the point.
Sarge will be out in a couple of months. Sarge will be something like FC2. And still no amd64, apt still is not bi-arch (amd64 & i386), no selinux, no xorg, confusing system tools, ...

It crashes more than IE ever did, so much for ALL
the EYES in open sources."

Perhaps it needs your eyes. Have you sent a bug report?

"FIX THE CRASHING IN FIREFOX, come on where are ALL
the EYES looking at the CODE?????

This is the whole problem, OpenSource is too arrogant
to fix REAL problems."

The real problem in this case is that you seam to be the only one with serious problems. To most people Mozilla behaves quite nicely.

In open source just like in closed source problems that happens to many people, or pose serious security problems have a tendency to get fixed first. The difference is that in open source, impatient people with programming skills have a chance to do it themselves to the benefit of the community.

This is no more arrogant than Microsoft or Sun denying their paying customers timely fixes to serious security problems, sometimes for months.

Fedora core 3 is an instable distro by default....
hey look we have the latest xorg toy
hey look we have the latest selinux patches
ecc ecc ecc
from my point of view,fedora will even be a stable distro because every 6 months there's a new toy that must be tested.
and if you decide to not upgrade in 2-3 months you will have
an unsupported linux.
yes for that troubles there is a fedora legacy but who can assure me that i will receive a proper support ?
now let's take ubuntu... this distro unlike fedora assure me that i will have maximum
support for 18 month and if you want extend support for
other months you can always pay few bucks at canonical Ltd.

1.) Pain installing the nVidia drivers, requiring a workaround (disabling the x-server during bootup and making symlinks for nvidia /dev entries in /etc/udev/devices).

The udev feature just expose s the flaw of Nvidia driver thus it is not utopia fault. Nvidia team is aware of that issue and are probably working on that problem. After all, they did a good job when their driver had an issue with 4 stacks.

2.) Pain finding repositories that were up to date for FC3, so I could install the missing packages that make a Linux desktop usable (some packages were much much harder to find for Fedora than they were for Ubuntu).

Check out http://www.fedorafaq.org for find repositories or even a custom yum.conf. Fedora.us is behind the schedule though.

3.) Annoying bugs (java crashing firefox, no sound in mozilla mplayer plugin, etc.) I never did get java working in Firefox using FC3

Which version of Firefox do you use?

Don't forget that is the third week after FC3 release compared to about 2 months Ubuntu.

I have digital camera (Olympus Camedia 2040Zoom), which works through usb-storage. and i have different sized memory cards. When changing cards, i had similar problem (I have been using mostly Mandrake before.) Following worked (on MDK):

umount /mnt/camera
(switch off the camera, change the card)
modprobe -r usb-storage
modprobe usb-storage
(switch the camera on )
mounting the camera (by hand or automagically)
and no need for reboot (not sure if this is correct way)...

About Fedora. I have to admit that i'm impressed how easy was the installation of FC3. I bought a new laptop (HP) couple of weeks ago. Tried to install MDK 10.0 (official). It didn't work. Tried SimplyMepis, it installed ok, worked, but i managed to break that.

It's not have been all good.
mp3s. - well... freshrpms... :-)
KDE - i understand that it may not be first priority of the development team, it wouldn't hurt to include some (good, like gwenview) third party kde packages? Isn't there space on the fourth cd???

The udev feature just expose s the flaw of Nvidia driver thus it is not utopia fault. Nvidia team is aware of that issue and are probably working on that problem. After all, they did a good job when their driver had an issue with 4 stacks.

Not true. I have used udev on Gentoo, Debian Sarge, and now Ubuntu... and I have never seen this problem before until I installed FC3.

thats because you use nvidia packages which cover up this flaw which hasnt happened with the newer udev and kernel packages that fedora ships. nevertheless its a fault of nvidia for which a update is expected from them shortly

thats because you use nvidia packages which cover up this flaw which hasnt happened with the newer udev and kernel packages that fedora ships. nevertheless its a fault of nvidia for which a update is expected from them shortly

Even if this is the case, then the Fedora team, realize how popular these drivers are, should not ship their distro in such a way that breaks these drivers. I call that hubris.

the breakage happens upstream and kernel developers wont wait for nvidia to play catchup. its not intentional breakage either. quit whining. if you choose to use proprietary blobs of code the burden is on you because fedora has a clearly stated goal of supporting only free and open source software